


the night breeze (carries something sweet)

by darkerstarss



Series: the reason why we live this life [2]
Category: A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
Genre: And Basketball, Awkward Flirting, First Kiss, Gen, Getting Together, aka Meg and Calvin are pining disasters, not a standalone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25029493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkerstarss/pseuds/darkerstarss
Summary: in the opinion of calvin o’keefe, basketball was a simply necessary part of life.or in which meg and calvin spend the day together
Relationships: Meg Murry/Calvin O'Keefe
Series: the reason why we live this life [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694128
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	the night breeze (carries something sweet)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, remember when I posted a Meg/Calvin oneshot forever ago and said it would be part of a series! Well, welcome back after three months. I'm gonna be honest, I've had a good bit of this written for a while, but it needed some hardcore editing, and... I kind of forgot about it. Yikes. I do have ten parts already planned for the series, though. To be honest it could probably use a little more editing but oh well.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, cause we're finally getting some awkward teenage romance up in here. And just to be clear, this takes place two weeks after part one.

_and i don't wanna go home yet  
let me walk to the top of the big night sky_

**first love/late spring, mitski**

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

In the opinion of Calvin O’Keefe, basketball was a simply necessary part of life. It was an escape — a reason to stay away from home for practice and to get out on Fridays for games. Without it, he surely wouldn’t have been able to maintain the façade of his average home life as long as he had. And when all else failed, it gave him an excuse for the bruises that sometimes peppered his arms and legs. 

It would not be an exaggeration to say that to Calvin, basketball was as fundamental breathing. And Meg Murry had much too good of an arm to let it go to waste. 

“So, I just throw it at the basket?” 

“Yeah.” 

Unconvinced, meg raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?” 

“Well,” Calvin hummed, stepping closer to her and squinting his eyes, “there’s a little more to it, but you gotta start somewhere. Baby steps, you know?” He fixed her position, moving her arms slightly to the left, tilting her wrists a bit farther back. 

The girl rolled her eyes, and then, on his mark, threw the ball towards the painted red square on the backboard, with as much strength as she could muster. She missed, of course, but only by a mere few inches. 

Grinning, Calvin high-fived her. “Pretty good for your first try!” 

It had only been about a week since the butterfly stitches had come off his cheek, after nearly eight days of struggling not to get them too dirty or too wet. The cut on his face — which he’d excused as the result of tripping beside a glass table — was now becoming a scar. It was, of course, still ferociously red and visibly new, but it was no longer threatening to reopen at any moment, and his facial expressions no longer caused any pain. 

“Thanks,” Meg laughed as she absent-mindedly smoothed her bun. 

“Let me guess,” Calvin called out as he jogged to retrieve the ball. “Physics?” 

His friend laughed and raised her hands in a mockery of defense. “Hey, it’s not my fault you play one of the nerdiest sports.” 

As Calvin neared her again, he came to a stop, pounding the orange ball in his hand against the concrete once, twice. “Should I be offended?” 

“If you want to.” 

Despite her mathematical genius, it took Meg nearly 17 tries before she made a goal, and even then, it rolled around the hoop twice before falling into the net. Still, Calvin congratulated her, pulling her into an embrace as she grinned. 

“You’re doing better than I did, my first time on the court.” 

Meg rolled her eyes, laughing as she went after the ball this time. “And how old were you then?” 

“Uh,” Calvin dragged, rubbing the back of his neck. “Six, I think?” 

The girl tossed him the ball as she dashed back towards him, glasses slipping down her nose. “Then I don’t think it counts.” 

“Hey, get good enough, maybe you could ask Ada to join JV when the season rolls around.” 

“Ada the _junior_? As in the captain of the varsity team?” 

“She’s got connections,” Calvin argued, dribbling the ball softly. “Plus, she’s nice.” 

Had he been any other person in her life, Meg might have cracked a joke about a crush on Ada Shapiro. Unfortunately, she'd held his hand just a few too many times to be comfortable with such teasing, and instead fixed the lull in the conversation by stealing the ball from him and running down the court to toss it into the other basket. 

And despite all odds, it went in. 

“Yeah!” she grabbed the ball before running back towards Calvin in excitement, passing it to him. “How was that?” 

Eyes falling over her excited smile, the boy caught it and laughed. It was hard not to laugh when he was with her; she made him happy. Happier than he’d been around many of his other friends, as of late. He tossed the ball back and forth between his hands as he opened his mouth to speak. 

“Shooting-wise, pretty good. But it’s all null in void since you _carried_ the ball.” 

Meg’s face instantly twisted in an exaggerated frustration. “Agh! _Stupid rules_.” 

“But,” Calvin said, “since you’re a beginner, we’ll count it.” 

Over the next forty-five minutes, he helped her improve her shooting — and remember to dribble the ball. By the time they were finished, she could by no means be labeled a natural at the sport, but she wasn’t _bad_ either; and he’d been right, she had a good arm. 

They finally left the park, just after six o’clock rolled around, when the sun was hanging low in the skies and the groups of children playing in the streets had lessened, as they were called inside for dinner. For the past few weeks, there hadn’t been many sunny days; it had been damp and overcast, mostly, raining often. Even so, the sun had decided to make an unscheduled appearance that afternoon, which simply had to be taken advantage of. 

“Did you have at least fun?” Calvin asked on the walk towards the Murry home, upon his friend’s announcement that no, basketball simply wasn’t for her. 

Nodding, Meg smiled. “Yeah. But I just want to make it clear that _fun_ does not mean I’m going to sign up for JV. Or _any_ team, that is. I’d rather it be just... a me and you thing.” 

The boy was unabashed by the smile that crept up his lips as his cheeks blushed red. “Okay, a me and you thing it is.” 

Calvin O’Keefe had _a thing_ with Meg Murry. 

He tried to maintain his cool as they walked, but found himself unable to wipe the grin off of his face, even as they talked about nothing in particular. By now he knew that his affections for Meg were glaringly obvious — he’d never really tried to hide his attraction; and she always seemed to reciprocate. Still, neither of them had every acknowledged whatever they may have felt out loud. 

Though they had grown close, enough that the rest of the ninth grade was beginning to catch on, and Troup had begun to tease him about it. 

Calvin was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of Meg pounding his basketball against the sidewalk. 

“So, do you teach all the girls in-and-out dribbling, or did Principal Jenkins pull you into his whole ‘you need to find an outlet for your rage’ thing?” 

“As far as I know,” he told her, humor lacing the edge of his voice, “you’re the only girl who’d be willing to put up with me on the court.” 

Meg sputtered out a laugh. “Okay, wait, you’re kidding me, right?” 

“What?” 

“Calvin O’Keefe,” she began, volume increasing slightly as she turned to face him on the sidewalk, taking sideways steps, “ _please_ tell me you’re aware that half the girls in our grade would literally _kill_ to have a chance with you?” 

With a sigh and a shrug, Calvin looked to the ground, face growing red once more. 

Of course, he would be lying if he said he hadn’t noticed the way some of the girls in their grade acted around him — he wasn’t oblivious. In fact, sometimes it was hard _not_ to notice. The previous Valentine's Day, his best friend had put duct tape on the inside of his locker door, so no one could slip any envelopes through the slits. Even as recent as the day he returned to school with the cut on his face, he’d been practically fawned over by some of the girls in the more popular clique, insisting he needed to be more careful in order not to ‘ruin that beautiful face of his.’ 

All this to say that it wasn’t that Calvin didn’t notice the attention he received from some of the girls — and one or two guys — in his grade. He just wasn’t interested, and did his best to let them know as much without being cruel. It was _exhausting_. 

“Yeah, but I mean, it doesn’t really matter. I never liked any of them like that.” 

“Now I know that’s a lie,” Meg laughed, dribbling the ball a few times more. “You’ve never had a crush on _anyone_?” 

Calvin shook his head in return. “Well I didn’t say _that._ I just never liked any of the girls that would admit to liking me. The only one that really comes to mind right now is when I liked that girl, Lena, last year.” 

“Doesn’t she... have a girlfriend?” 

“I never said it was reciprocated,” the boy insisted, “She’s cool, though. We still talk sometimes.” 

Meg shrugged. “See, therein lies your problem, young Padawan.” She again turned to look at him, stepping sideways. “You’re liking girls on the other half; the _wrong_ half.” 

“Huh?” Calvin’s brow creased in confusion, and he cocked his head. 

Meg tried not to think about how utterly adorable it was, even with the scar now decorating his cheek; it may still have been quite new, but she had already grown rather used to it. After all, she’d barely known him for a month, so it wasn’t hard for his current looks to replace the way he’d once been in her mind. 

“If half the girls in our grade have a crush on you,” she continued, “then, you know, statistically, the other half doesn’t. And you’re focusing on the wrong half. You need to focus on the girls that you actually have a chance with.” 

A look of realization dawning upon his face, Calvin nodded. “Oh, gotcha.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking down at his feet as they walked; he felt strangely nervous, which he didn’t usually feel around Meg Murry. It was strange. “So... which side are you on?” 

_Well, shit_. He probably could’ve been less blunt about it.

He definitely could’ve been less blunt, given the way Meg’s eyes widened in surprise, and she opened her mouth to respond, yet didn’t speak. The girl averted her eyes quickly, stuttering something beneath her breath. 

“I’m sorry,” he cut in desperately. “That was completely out of line and I—” 

“It’s fine,” Meg assured him quietly, speaking before she lost the chance. She took in a deep breath, before releasing it with a huff. “That’s... a good question, actually. I just... need a second before I can answer.” 

Silence surrounded the pair as they walked, the tension thick enough to cut with a knife. 

Finally, after what must have been at least a minute, Meg cleared her throat. “Well, I’m clearly not already taken, but I’d kind of rather _not_ be categorized with that girl that offered to kiss you better after... you know.” She chose her words carefully, not wanting to delve too deep in the events of that night, two weeks earlier. 

Calvin faltered for a moment, unable to help the smile on his face, _because did Meg just kind of almost say she liked him_? She didn’t say she _didn’t_ like him, which was the closest to verbally recognizing anything as they had come since their return from Camazotz. 

Possibly trying a bit too hard to remain casual, he hummed a response. “Yeah. That was awkward.” 

“For everyone involved, I assume.” 

“I’m still glad she didn’t actually try to kiss it. Would’ve hurt like heck.” 

He refrained from telling Meg — even in a joking manner — that he wouldn’t have minded quite as much if it had been _her_ who made the offer. But elated from her near-confession to him only moments before, Calvin didn’t want to run the risk of embarrassing her. 

After a beat of silence, Meg swallowed. “What do you want me to say?” 

The boy was taken aback by the question, unsure of how to answer. He, of course, knew what he wanted to say, but somehow, actually speaking the words seemed much more difficult than simply knowing. So instead, he said, “I don’t know.” 

Why was this so goddamn hard? He’d practiced the conversation in the mirror at least three times, and somehow it had always been much smoother than _this_. 

The quiet overtook them, the only sound that of children playing in the street and cars racing down nearby roads, and their feet on the concrete. Neither one of the pair spoke again until they’d reached the driveway of the Murry home, and Meg handed Calvin his basketball. 

“I’ll text you later, yeah?” 

Calvin nodded. “Can’t wait.” He watched as she jogged across her yard, jumping up the porch steps and going through the front door, letting it fall closed behind her. He’d just turned to leave and begin the walk towards his own house when the door opened again, and he turned to see Meg’s mother. 

“Calvin? Would you like to stay for dinner?” she asked, loudly. 

Nervously, he reached back and rubbed his neck. “I don’t know, I should probably—” 

“Oh, nonsense,” the woman waved. “We’re having soup and sandwiches, and I’m sure Meg would be _delighted_.” 

Through the open door, he heard his friend’s mortified cry of “ _Mom!_ ” followed by a loud groan, and his mind Calvin could picture the way she pulled at her face in embarrassment. He let out a small laugh at the image, before walking towards the house, leaving his basketball in the grass. 

He returned the woman’s smile as he climbed up the porch, following into the foyer of the house. “Thank you, Dr Murry.” 

“Please, call me Kate.” 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Things in the Murry home had changed in the month since they returned from Camazotz. 

Meg had spent so long wishing for her father; some part of her had always just assumed that once he came home, everything would be okay again. All the troubles and hang-ups of her daily life would just... _disappear_. 

But of course, the rational part of her knew that was impossible. 

Still, though things could never be exactly like they were before, that didn’t mean they couldn’t be better. After all, she had her dad back — Alex Murry, the man that had loved his family so much it nearly killed him. Still, rather expectedly, there were small gaps in odd places. None of the Murrys were the same people they had been when the man had disappeared. 

Meg had changed, possibly for the worst; she was no longer the bright-eyed social butterfly she had been in the fourth grade, but she was working on picking herself back up. Charles Wallace was practically a stranger to his own father, having done a good bit of his growing since he was adopted; even so, they seemed somewhat connected. And their mother, the brilliant microbiologist Kate Murry, had grown so used to life as a single mother, to the rumors and the stress, she would need time to readjust. 

Even so, it seemed that a little different was _exactly_ what the Murry family needed. It would still be a bit of a bumpy transition back into normal life, but the four of them were already beginning to fall back into some sense of routine. They were _trying_ , at the very least. 

They definitely seemed happier than the last time Calvin had eaten dinner with them, now with the addition of Alex Murry. 

“So, Calvin, I hear you’re quite the sports star?” 

The corners of Calvin’s mouth turned upwards at the sound of Meg’s sharp breath in, but he nodded. “I guess so. I play basketball. Since I’m a freshman, I’ll only be able to play for JV, but hopefully I can play varsity next year.” 

“Hmm,” Alex hummed through a spoonful of tomato soup. “You know, we should play a scrimmage sometime. I was quite the basketball player when I was younger.” 

“He was _not_ ,” Kate cut in, rolling her eyes. “He tried to play once, with our friends in college; his glasses fell off mid-game and he stepped on them.” 

“Hey! I’m trying to look cool. This kid could be Meg’s—” 

Unwilling to allow her father to finish the thought, Meg cut in. “Please, I’m begging you, stop, Dad.” She had pressed her face into the palms of her hands, unwilling to look up at the risk of meeting her friend’s eyes. 

Biting into her grilled cheese, Kate glanced at her daughter, but geared the conversation away from the topic. “I’m glad to see your face is healing. Must’ve been an awful fall.” 

At the mention of his cut, Calvin’s shoulders tensed, and he subconsciously reached up to touch the skin of his cheek. Out of the corner of his eye, he found Meg, who seemed equally upset by the mention, and a little concerned, but hid her sorrows in her food. 

“Uh, yeah,” he began, clearing his throat. “It hurt... a lot.” 

“I’m sure. I bet you’re happy to have those stitches off.” 

He nodded in response, staring down at his plate. Still, he felt Charles Wallace’s eyes on him, and had been around the boy enough to know that he knew _something_. What exactly he knew, remained a mystery. 

Beneath the table, Meg reached out and put a hand on Calvin’s leg beneath the table; he suddenly realized that he’d been tapping his foot rather fast, and loudly. 

“Mom, I don’t think he really wants to talk about that over dinner,” she told them. “He doesn’t like blood, you know.” 

Alex laughed. “Him and me both.” 

Some of the tension in the boy’s shoulders released as the subject was dropped. He wasn’t _exactly_ sure what family dinners were supposed to be like, but Calvin was fairly certain they weren’t normally this awkward. Then again, he couldn’t be sure. 

“My new book on planetary sciences arrived today,” Charles Wallace announced, bringing the attention towards himself. “Would you like to see it, Calvin?” 

With but a glance in the direction of Meg, the boy nodded, putting a smile on his face. “Sounds great.” 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Twenty minutes. 

Twenty minutes, Calvin had been sitting on the carpet of Charles Wallace’s room, Meg by his side, listening to the young boy ramble on about the contents of his textbook, showing off the various pictures and diagrams it featured, and explaining what he knew about each one. 

Of course, Calvin loved science, and he adored Charles Wallace. But twenty minutes of nonstop information flow at eight o’clock on a Saturday night was enough to have anyone bored out of their minds. Well, anyone except for the Murry children, apparently; probably their parents, too. He’d held on for a good twelve minutes, though. 

That’s why Calvin was relieved when Kate Murry popped into the bedroom, and informed them all that Calvin needed to be going, before it was too dark to walk alone. 

With a nod, Meg stood up off the ground, dusting her jeans lightly as she looked to Calvin. “Come on,” she said, tilting her head towards the door, “I’ll walk you out.” 

He followed the girl out of the room, down the stairs and to the door. She opened it for the both of them, and stepped out after him into the warm night; the air was thick, and it was obvious that it would rain later on into the night. With the door shut behind them, Meg’s found herself unwilling took up from the ground, and the two stood facing each other for a long, awkward moment. 

“Thanks for coming,” Meg started, finally, just as Calvin said, “Thanks for having me.” 

The both of them met each other's eyes, and the boy pursed his lips. 

“I mean, seriously thank you. I know... we’re still working out the kinks and everything, with my Dad, and Charles Wallace can be a bit much for _anyone_ , and your face, and...” 

Calvin shrugged, gave an assuring smile. “It was fine, really.” 

“No,” she repeated, rubbing her temple, “it’s not fine, and I know, you don’t like talking about... just, ugh, I don’t know what to say! My parents are freaking geniuses and if I’m afraid to bring it up because I know they’ll see right through me and I promised you that I wouldn’t—” 

She stopped, abruptly, as she looked up to find Calvin staring at her, a soft smile displayed on his lips. 

Confused, Meg’s forehead wrinkled. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“You’re cute when you’re freaking out.” 

And she was. He liked the way her face scrunched up and her glasses slipped down her nose, how she rubbed her hands up and down across her face and accidentally pulled a few short strands over her eyes. He liked the way, when she was especially frustrated, she would bite her lip in between sentences, as though she had nothing and also everything to say. 

Meg just blinked at the boy for a moment, taken aback by his words. “Oh.” 

They fell into an awkward quiet, the hushed croaking of frogs playing like a backtrack where cricket chirps should have been. Meg’s eyes again lowered, focusing on her shoes; she could feel the boy still looking at her, though. 

“Look,” Calvin said, taking a deep breath in an attempt to gather his courage; he shoved his hands into his pockets, “I’m just gonna say it. It’s not like you don’t already know.” He paused, shutting his eyes tight nervously, then opening them again. “I really like you, Meg. Like, a lot. And I know, everything has been really weird lately, with your Dad, and mine, but I just...” the boy paused, realizing he’d begun rambling, and stopped; he took another deep breath in, “I just thought you should know.” 

Meg froze, voice caught in her throat as she listened to what her friend said. _Of course_ she knew; she wasn’t blind. But knowing it and addressing it were two very different things, and for a second, she worried that the look on her face might send the wrong message. 

Shyly, Calvin’s eyes moved down to the ground. 

“You don’t have to say anything, I know that was sort of... a lot.” 

For a little while, all was silent, and he didn’t dare look up at Meg, worried he might find a different answer than the one he hoped for, that she might give him that sympathetic smile and send him on his way with a promise that they could still be friends. 

But after a few seconds, he heard the girl clear her throat, and looked up. 

Slowly, Meg offered a small smile. “I really like you too.” 

It was as if a huge weight was suddenly lifted off of his shoulders, and Calvin let out a relieved laugh, bending forward a bit. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. “I was terrified.” 

“I never thought I’d live to see an awkward Calvin O’Keefe,” the girl teased; her head lowered, a bit shy, but exponentially more confident than she’d been when they met, “That was weird; cute, but weird.” 

Calvin shook his head, smiling. “Well I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He punctuated the statement with a light chuckle, and then, before Meg could react, he had pulled her closer and leaned down, planting his lips on top of her own. 

Surprised, Meg’s eyes widened, because _Calvin O’Keefe was kissing her_. A moment later, though, once she’d truly processed it, she started to kiss back. It was a far cry from Hollywood’s ‘perfect first kiss;’ it was much too uncoordinated for that — too clumsy and awkward; after all, neither one of them had ever had a real kiss. But it was still good. And after a few seconds, it was over. 

Calvin broke the kiss suddenly, stepping back with a look of nervous horror on his face. “Oh my god, Meg. I’m sorry—” 

“Can you stop apologizing?” Meg interrupted with a shuddering laugh. She swatted his arm in scolding, not fighting to hide the bright grin on her lips. “You’re fine. I’d have punched you if you weren’t.” 

Calming a bit, Calvin chuckled; his eyes never left hers. “That’s reassuring.” 

“I’m not going to _punch_ you, Calvin,” the girl argued, humorously. 

“I know!” 

They stood there, laughing for a minute and gazing at each other and laughing and looking and looking. The warm air wrapped around them thickly, memories of the heavy rain that had fallen a few days prior. Eventually, the comfortable silence was broken by a car passing by, headlights flashing across their faces. 

Clearing her throat, Meg’s grin settled into her lips. She pushed her glasses up on her nose a bit and said, “You should probably get home, before it gets too late.” 

“Probably,” Calvin nodded, softly, pausing, “I’ll text you when I get there.” 

“I’ll be waiting,” the girl hummed. Her eyes narrowed as she rethought the words, and Meg spoke again. “I mean, not _actually_ waiting, but...” 

Calvin cut her off, interrupting with a short titter. “Goodnight, Meg Murry.” 

“Goodnight, Calvin O’Keefe.” 

Moving slowly, not anxious to leave, the boy made his way down the porch steps, down the sidewalk that cut through the grass. He made it halfway across the yard before he turned back, and Meg rolled her eyes in the dark; she crossed her arms. 

“What are you doing?” 

“I’m just looking,” Calvin shrugged. 

Meg shook her head, laughed. “I’ll see you on Monday.” 

“Not if I see you first.” 

“I’m still waiting for that text, Cal.” 

With a contented sigh, Calvin turned around and walked the rest of the way out of the yard. 

He walked down the street, turned at the corner, and kept walking, hands in his pockets, a smile on his face until he reached his own house. Then he took the key from the mat and unlocked the door, stepped inside and closed it behind him. Just in case, he made his face flat as he looked around. 

Some of the lights were on, some were out, but the quiet buzz that filled the home told him everything he needed to know, and he let the smile creep up his lips once more. 

Empty. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Be sure to comment your thoughts and if you liked it, leave a kudos!
> 
> Calvin might have been a little OOC in this, but I have no regrets. I mean, come one! He may have been Mr Confident in the movie, but they're teenagers with absolutely no experience, of course they were both gonna be hella awkward.
> 
> BONUS:  
> "I really like you, Meg. Like, a lot. Like Jack and Rose, Romeo and Juliet, and... why can’t I think of any couples that survive? Not the point, sorry."  
> (a scrapped line that was originally a part of Cal's confession)


End file.
